Interstate 405 (California)
Interstate 405 (I-405, commonly known in the Los Angeles area as "the 405") is a major north–south Interstate Highway in Southern California. The entire route is known as the northern segment of the San Diego Freeway. I-405 is a bypass auxiliary route of I-5, running along the southern and western parts of the Greater Los Angeles urban area from I-5 in Irvine in the south to I-5 near San Fernando in the north. I-405 is a heavily traveled thoroughfare by both commuters and freight haulers along its entire length and is the busiest and most congested freeway in the United States. The freeway's annual average daily traffic between exits 21 and 22 in Seal Beach reached 374,000 in 2008, making it the highest count in the nation. It has played a crucial role in the development of dozens of cities and suburbs along its route through Los Angeles and Orange counties. It also serves Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and Orange County's John Wayne Airport. Route description Orange County I-405 begins at the El Toro Y interchange in southeastern Irvine in Orange County, splitting from its parent I-5 and inheriting that route's San Diego Freeway title; I-5 continues north as the Santa Ana Freeway. The freeway passes immediately south of the Irvine Spectrum Center mall before intersecting with State Route 133 (CA 133). It then continues through Irvine, passing north of University of California, Irvine and then along the northern boundary of John Wayne International Airport. After passing the airport, the freeway enters Costa Mesa and has an interchange with CA 55. It passes South Coast Plaza before a partial interchange with CA 73, which serves as a partially-tolled bypass of I-405 between Costa Mesa and Laguna Niguel. The freeway then travels through Fountain Valley and along the edges of Westminster and Huntington Beach before entering Seal Beach, where it begins to run concurrently with CA 22. It continues along the northern edge of Seal Beach, passing between Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach and Joint Forces Training Base Los Alamitos, before CA 22 splits from I-405 and continues west while the freeway turns north. I-405 then intersects the southern end of I-605 before crossing the San Gabriel River and entering Los Angeles County. Los Angeles County I-405 enters Los Angeles County in the city of Long Beach. It passes to the north of California State University, Long Beach and then along the south of Long Beach Airport. The freeway then intersects with I-710 before entering Carson, where it meets I-110. It also passes near California State University, Dominguez Hills and Dignity Health Sports Park, home of Major League Soccer club LA Galaxy. After leaving Carson, I-405 briefly enters the city of Los Angeles by passing through the Harbor Gateway, a strip of land connecting San Pedro to the rest of the city. The freeway then continues to roughly parallel the contour of the coastline as it passes through the South Bay communities of Torrance, Lawndale, Redondo Beach, Hawthorne, and El Segundo. The freeway then encounters I-105 on the southeastern corner of Los Angeles International Airport. It passes to the east of the airport, serving it with exits at Imperial Highway and Century Boulevard. I-405 next passes through Inglewood, coming near the site of the Los Angeles Stadium at Hollywood Park, future home to the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League. It then passes through Westchester and Culver City where it meets CA 90, the Marina Freeway. It serves the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Mar Vista and West Los Angeles while passing a few miles east of Santa Monica, intersecting with I-10 in the process. The freeway continues into Westwood, passing just to the west of University of California, Los Angeles. It then passes the Getty Center as it ascends the Sepulveda Pass through the Santa Monica Mountains. After cresting the mountains, I-405 descends into the San Fernando Valley, intersecting U.S. Route 101 (US 101) in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of Los Angeles. The freeway then continues due north through the western part of the valley, passing east of Van Nuys Airport and California State University, Northridge. It intersects CA 118 in the Mission Hills area before ending in a merge with I-5 in Sylmar. I-405 is part of the California Freeway and Expressway System, and is part of the National Highway System, a network of highways that are considered essential to the country's economy, defense, and mobility by the Federal Highway Administration. The freeway from present-day I-10 to I-5 near San Fernando is known as the San Diego Freeway, and less commonly as the Sepulveda Freeway (after Sepulveda Boulevard). Traffic congestion The freeway's congestion problems are legendary, leading to jokes that the road was numbered 405 because traffic moves at "four or five" miles per hour, or because drivers had spent "four or five" hours to travel anywhere. Indeed, average speeds as low as 5 miles per hour (8.0 km/h) are routinely recorded during morning and afternoon commutes, and its interchanges with the Ventura Freeway (US 101) and with the Santa Monica Freeway (I-10) each consistently rank among the five most congested freeway interchanges in the United States. As a result of these congestion problems, delays passing through the entire Los Angeles metropolitan area using this bypass route instead of merely using the primary route I-5 through Downtown may be present. Of the major reasons for the excessively heavy traffic on the freeway, I-405 is the only major north–south freeway in the densely populated areas between West Los Angeles and Downtown, crossing the Santa Monica Mountains and connecting San Fernando Valley and the Los Angeles basin. Another parallel freeway is proposed to connect the Valley and the LA basin (the Laurel Canyon Freeway or La Cienega Freeway), but has faced upper class home-owner opposition. Despite four years of construction disruptions, billions of dollars of public money, LA Times commentary claims traffic with the lane expansions is actually just as bad or worse or dangerous. History "Carmageddon" Sepulveda Pass Improvements Project Future Manchester and Century Boulevard interchanges Orange County In popular culture * I-405 was the location for the 2000 short film 405. * The Swedish rock band Europe's song "California 405" is featured on their 2015 studio album War of Kings. * Chuck Lorre used an end-of-show vanity card in 2013 to berate workers on I- for their apparent lack of progress after five years. * The Jimmy Eat World song "If you don't, don't", from the album "Bleed America" includes the line "Don't you know I'm thinking (know I'm thinking), driving 405 past midnight". * The Death Cab for Cutie song "405" on their second studio album, We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes, may be incorrectly associated with California's I-405. The song is actually referring to I-405 in Seattle, as the band is from Bellingham. * The song "Drive" on Halsey's 2015 album Badlands uses the story of a reckless drive on the I-405 to frame its relatively unstructured lyrics. In ''Intertropolis & Routeville'' In the episode "Jamzilla: The 405", I-405 the character, with her boyfriend I-605, are moving back to Los Angeles from Highway City because they were not very happy in Intertropolis and Routeville. This episode segment take place on I-405 in Culver City, where character I-405 is standing on the overpass getting a good view of the freeway, seeing many vehicles passing by and stuck in traffic. Exit list Except where prefixed with a letter, postmiles were measured on the road as it was in 1964, based on the alignment that existed at the time, and do not necessarily reflect current mileage. R reflects a realignment in the route since then, M indicates a second realignment, L refers an overlap due to a correction or change, and T indicates postmiles classified as temporary (for a full list of prefixes, see the list of postmile definitions on Wikipedia). Segments that remain unconstructed or have been relinquished to local control may be omitted. The numbers reset at county lines; the start and end postmiles in each county are given in the county column. See also * Interstate 5 in California ** Interstate 105 (California) ** Interstate 605 (California) * Interstate 10 in California ** Interstate 110 (California) ** Interstate 210 (California) ** Interstate 710 * U.S. Route 101 in California * Interstate 1 in California * San Diego Freeway * Santa Ana Freeway * Ventura Freeway * Santa Monica Freeway * Hollywood Freeway Category:Interstate 405 (California) Category:Interstate Highways Category:Highways and roads Category:Auxiliary Interstate Highways Category:Interstate Highways in California Category:San Diego Freeway Category:Interstate 5 Category:Bypasses Category:Los Angeles Category:Freeways in California Category:Highways numbered 405